Cinderella on the Ropes
by Moon Faery
Summary: 1x2x1 After the enemy nabs Heero, it's up to Duo to brave the horrors of a High School prom to rescue his loverpartner from evil pink-wearing pedophiles (not Relena). Preventers just doesn't pay enough for this kind of thing!


Cinderella on the Ropes  
Rating: PG13  
Series: Gundam Wing  
Genre: Humor/General  
Pairings: 1x2x1 - not graphic  
Spoilers: Solid NO.  
Warnings: Yaoi, humor  
By Moon Faery

Disclaimer: A statement created solely to save one's ass from becoming lawn for the proverbial legal mower. I do not own Gundam Wing. However, this story line and plot are MINE. (Holds fic close to her.) Grrrr...

Author Notes: I appologize most sincerely to anyone who reads this and actually expects romance. More mangled fairy tales.

Cream walls trimmed with pastel blue glared down diapprovingly. Duo picked his way upstairs through piles of unconscious guards, extremely conspicuous in his canary yellow linen shirt and blue tights. One of the guards groaned, only to receive a quick tap in the temple, sending him back into unconsciousness.

He loved knock-out gas.

"Damn it, Heero, how'n hell did you end up in this mess?" he grumbled to himself, nudging yet another guard in the temple at signs of wakefulness. If Heero hadn't turned up missing (after going for a soda of all things), he wouldn't have been forced to masquerade as a student in the "Ye Olde Prome Masquerade Contest". Thus, the entire crime to fashion known only as the "Color Blind Prince Not-So-Charming" ensemble would have been completely unnecessary.

For that alone, Heero would pay, and pay dearly. Maybe he'd load his practice gun with blanks for a while.

Through his entire mental rant at student stupidity, Heero Yuy and fairy tale idiots, Duo never stopped running. His booted feet hit the lushly carpeted final landing, getting tangled in a discared pair of pantyhose for a moment that left him cursing so creatively that his old friends from L2 would have washed his mouth out with something much more caustic than simple soap.

"Cannabalistic bitch of a saint mother..." A portrait of somebody important stared down her nose at him disdainfully, painmted eyes cold. "Yeah, back at'cha lady." He thumbed his nose and went back to work. After several minutes of struggling, the pilot finally freed his feet from the evil necessity of femininity and started checking doors for the tell-tale signs of unwanted occupancy.

On a wild hunch, he started with the one that was chained and barred shut. Keeping his eyes wide open in case of guards. Why anyone would imprision a high-level threat in a hotel (much less a hotel that was mainly rented out by a high school for Prom) was a piece of stupidity he would have to find time to laugh about later. And snicker. There would be snickering involved somewhere.

On the otherside of the chained door, someone was cursing fluently in three languages and at least one code. It had to be Heero - most of the words were so technical that it would take a complete geek (or someone who knew him intimately) to realize that they were vulgar at all. Though even Duo had to admit, he hadn't known a motherboard could do _that_.

He would have to find out where Heero had learned Ancient Latin some day.

Moving so slowly that it made the stupid tights chafe even more, he unbarred the door and deactivated the key-pad locks, then eased the door open.

The first thing he saw was a chair headed for his head. The second was the floor (quite a high pile, colored an attractive shade of crimson with black whorls - must be an upper-scale room) as he dropped to kiss it. The chair stopped centimeters from the wall. At the far end of the room, frayed and broken ropes were still tied to the bedposts.

"Duo."

Glaring up at the rescuee, Duo helped himself to his feet. "Nice way to thank me for the break-out, big guy."

The damsel in distress himself grunted something and set the furniture down. "About time. Alone?" He caught the gun Duo tossed at him and automatially checked it for bullets. Duo snorted - like he would give Heero an unloaded weapon.

"Of course. Q and Trow' are in Bangladesh guarding Her Highness and Rasputin. I wasn't cutting short their honeymoon."

"Wufei?"

"Cornered by the schitzo herself into taking a trip to where the new Lx98 cluster's going."

Heero stared at him. Duo almost made the fatal mistake of snickering at his lover - he looked so cute, shocked and pissed as he was. He filed the thought for later. Post-mission sex was the best — even better than make up sex. "You came alone?! Idiot!"

"Hey!" the long-haired agent defended himself. "I've had three hours from the time you were caught to now to work this out. I think I've done pretty good so far."

"Shut up." Heero performed another check on the gun, then put it in the infamous holster in the back of his waistband. It left an obvious lump, but at Heero claimed better hard to hide than out of reach. "Let's go."

Duo nodded and poked an eye out into the coridoor. Heero glared. Duo sighed and put down the novelty eyeball that had been stashed in his shirt and peered properly. The hall was still clear. He waved Heero out and took up a position around the corner from the stairwell. Heero pressed close to his back, breathing so lightly he couldn't feel it on the back of his neck.

"Civillians in the banquet hall, guards everywhere else."

"Understood."

He rolled his eyes. Even after six years, Heero still wouldn't use a simple "okay". "I'll head down first - I look like a student. You head three seconds after me and watch my back."

"Understood."

Sighing, he headed downstairs, stepping carefully over the guards again. He pitied them for a moment. Not only was the gas going to leave them with a hangover that definitely had not been worth it, they were also dressed in colors that made his seem wonderfully stylish. Really, what was it with rebel millitants and dressing like mid-A.D. aristocrats? In pink and lace no less, the poor people. Even the women looked ridiculous.

He reached the last landing and looked out into the main entrance. They obviously hadn't been expecting rescue so soon - no one had come to check on the guards, and other than a student or two, the path to the exit was completely clear.

Behind him, someone cleared their throat.

"Missing your date?"

Jumping high enough that he nearly had to scrape his own head off the ceiling, Duo turned and found himself face to wrinkly neck with a tall, semi-dignified bag of skin and what had to be old dirty diapers, going by the smell.

He was wearing the rebel uniform (snigger) and Heero was no where in sight. However, several students still were.

"Um.... Yeah, just waiting for her." Duo tried to look innocent and charming, which was still amazingly simple at the advanced age of twenty, give or take. Really, the day he stopped charming people was the day he gave up his ID badge...

"How old are you?"

Duo leaned back and crossed his arms, staring the idiot in pink full in the face. Surrepticiously, one on his hands brushed the slit in his shirt that hid a small knife holster. "Like I'm stupid enough to tell you. What are you, some kind of pedophiliac perv?"

The Sharpei on two legs grinned, showing off a half-mouthful of pearly yellows. "As a matter of fact, yes." Before Duo could do more than stumble backwards and curse, the man had shoved him up against the wall and was exploring his tonsils. The world seemed to freeze, then crack and finally shatter into peaceful oblivion. His last coherent thought was a very eloquent, _Oh, EW._

Voices were slowly intruding on Duo's concious, dragging him biting and bitching back to the real world, which he just knew held memories that he didn't want to remember. He could see, his eyes must have been locked open, but whoever was peaking must have been out of his line of sight. He tried to move to look at them, but couldn't work up the will power to even blink. His mouth felt dry, but he couldn't figure out why until he tried to swallow. It was locked open in an expression of unending horror.

"He's been like this for three hours now?" The voice was feminine and very soft; whoever it was, she was obviously trying not to wake him up. That automatically out her in the black as far as points were concerned.

"Three hours twenty-three point five minutes." He knew that voice too. It was much more familiar than the other. Very deep, masculine, and horribly tone-deaf, or at least flat as a squished pancake. He liked it. A lot. It sent tingles down to places that really shouldn't have been tingling in the prescence of a lady. "I took out the... perpetrator, but Duo still hasn't revived.

"Obviously... Ahem... Yes, yes... You believe it's shock?" This was a new voice, also female. It was harder, but more cultured than the first, though most people probably would never have noticed.

"The doctors found no traces of chemical or biological agents that would cause such an affect." Sigh. He really liked that voice... Why did his mouth taste like vomit?

"... And you brought him here why?"

"Noin!"

"What?"

"Can you revive him?"

"I think he's already coming too." Something white passed in front of him, creating a strong smell that was waved under his nose. "Duo? Duo, are you awake?"

He distinctly felt his fingers twitch. The coffee under his nose paused just long enough for him to unlimber his fingers and snatch it. A long sip moistened his moiuth, warmed his sore jaw muscles and brought memory screaming back. He was Duo Maxwell. The tone-deaf idiot was his personal idiot and squeeze-toy, Heero. The world was round, and pizza was God's gift to college students.

Memory of his last few seconds of conciousness returned like an animated villain. He had been kissed by an old freak with bad teeth and worse breath.

Noin shrieked most unbecomingly as he sprayed her with coffee and immediately started choking. Heero pounded him on the back until the sputtering stopped. Duo sat with his head between his knees, a picture of dejection and disgust.

"... Duo?" Heero rubbed tiny circles on his back, voice as concered as it ever got.

The braided man groaned, but didn't lift his head. "... Sandpaper."

Lady Une and Noice exchanged glances with each other. "Sandpaper?" the queried in unison.

"That or a doctor. A psycologist would be nice too. At least a dentist."

Neither Heero, Noin or Une were sure whether or not it was safe to laugh.

Cinderella dressed in yella'  
Went upstairs to kiss a fella  
Made a mistake and kissed a snake  
How many doctors will it take?


End file.
